Broncos & NFL

Klis: Seahawks-Broncos game had too many penalties for good watching

Referee Tony Corrente and his crew keep a close watch on Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, Broncos safety T.J. Ward and other players Thursday night in the first preseason game at Sports Authority Field at Mile High, with a combined 25 penalties in the game. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

While he was hanging out on the Dallas Cowboys' party bus Thursday night with, among others, the team's second-in-command, Stephen Jones, Blandino couldn't know how one of his officiating crews was turning the preseason game at Sports Authority Field at Mile High into a farce.

The Seahawks and Broncos combined for 25 penalties and 226 penalty yards. This wasn't Tampa Bay-Jacksonville we're talking about, although they had their share of penalties, too.

This was a game featuring the two best teams in the league.

"We knew it was going to be like that," Broncos defensive tackle Terrance Knighton said. "It's going to be flag football in the secondary soon."

Among the 12 preseason games played through Friday, six were penalty-marred. But none had more combined penalties for more combined penalty yards than the Broncos-Seahawks.

"We had a really sloppy football game tonight," Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. "And when you have 25 penalties in a game, it's going to be kind of messy. That kind of shrouded the game, I think, on both sides."

Typically, any game that ends with nobody talking about the officials is a well-officiated contest. The NFL has a problem because overofficiated preseason games and an overly entertained head of officiating is all anyone's talking about.

Blandino's problem was the bus.

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Had he met Jerry Jones' son, among others, at an upscale Los Angeles restaurant for dinner, it would have been no big deal. It's how the NFL does business.

But when the boss of NFL referees is spotted on the Cowboys' ostentatious bus, and females are among the others joining him, the perception is the team is doing Blandino a rip-roaring favor.

Blandino and the bus is a salacious twist, but much more disturbing is how all those penalty flags ruined what little entertainment there is in Week 1 of the preseason.

In separate games, the St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears each drew 14 penalties. The Oakland Raiders were flagged 13 times, although they were just following eye-patch tradition.

In the Broncos-Seahawks game, it seemed as though the officials went in with a quota. They had better have reached it.

"We knew there was going to be an emphasis," Broncos coach John Fox said.

The expected emphasis was on illegal contact against a receiver who had cleared 5 yards from the line of scrimmage. And there were five such penalties, including pass interference calls, all against the Broncos.

So much for calling it the Seahawks Rule.

Where Seattle did get caught, though, was in trying to live up to the bully image it attained by blasting the Broncos in the Super Bowl. In the preseason follow-up, the Seahawks were flagged for unnecessary roughness, taunting and unsportsmanlike conduct resulting in ejection.

Still, there were enough illegal blocks and neutral zone infractions to turn the usual exciting scoring drives into a nine-minute marches of drudgery.

Here's hoping Week 1 of the preseason was purposely overofficiated on Blandino's order so teams could become accustomed to the new penalty emphasis and it will be football as usual come the regular season.

Here's also hoping that should Blandino visit Denver for the Sunday night opening game with the Indianapolis Colts on Sept. 7, the Broncos make arrangements to pick him up in Joe Ellis' cab.

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